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Sunday, February 19, 2012

It seems like we have been planning for this week since September! "Proud To Be Me" was one of my biggest projects this year and I am thrilled to say that it went well!

P.T.B.M.Day started in 2010 when a young elementary school girl was being teased for her love of Star Wars in Illinois. Her full story is here: Katie's story She worked through the teasing and came out stronger. We wanted to continue this positive idea of being proud of you by creating a whole week! Here is what it looked like:

-HATS OFF to me! Wear your favorite hat to school today!

-HEART ME! Wear red or pink in honor of Y-O-U! Happy Valentine ’s Day!GEAR UP TO BE GREEAAT!! What does your future hold? Wear your favorite school/college shirt, or dress up to show everyone what you want to be when you grow up.EXPRESS YOURSELF, DRESS YOURSELF!Choose your clothes and wear your FAVORITE outfit that expresses who you are!

Proud to be me Quilt!

Other special events for the week included:

Making our school quilt. We hung all the 400+ patches together to create a school quilt to express our individuality.

All grade meetings which lasted about 10 minutes in which we read a specific story about positive self esteem and gave the students a time to speak out about how they felt about the week!

Rubber bracelets that said PROUD TO BE ME! were given to every student in the school to wear proudly!

Reading to 3rd grade!

Overall, I feel that the school did a great job participating and I hope that I can take this idea to school with me next year!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

National School Counseling week is officially upon us! To celebrate this week, every elementary school counselor in the district came together to promote this career and give back! This is just one of the reasons why I love this job; even though it is a week FOR school counselors, our counselors were the ones giving BACK to the district. We gathered together at the administration building and invited such individuals as the superintendent, administrative assistants, the human resources department, and the other school counselors in the middle and high school. We shared the great story, "Cookies Bite-size life lessons" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It is a phenomenal book that explains all the things you can do with a simple cookie! After making a variety of cookies, we shared this story and paper (pictured below). A milk and cookies afternoon seemed to hit the spot and put a smile on many faces! I hope you have a great NSCW and take the time to thank YOUR school counselor.

Monday, February 6, 2012

At the beginning of my internship, I felt that it was very important to get to know the faculty and staff. Lunch was a great place to talk to them as people- not just teachers. Now that I know the wonderful people that teach all our students, I have become a frequent visitor to the second grade. Starting in January, I invited 3-4 second grade students to lunch! We eat in the counseling office and have time to eat and play a short game. I feel that by meeting with a small group, I am really getting to know this grade! I have eaten with half of second grade and am making moves through the other classes to get to dine to each and every one of them! Here is the little reminder that I have in the middle of the table so ALL our little friends know what we expect during lunch. The sandwich poster is something I created last year which could be a good ice breaker if the group does not know one another very well. Enjoy your lunch!